CS 1401 "Research Contact" Assignments

One goal of this course is that you become aware of the research going on in
this department and understand that research is one career path open to you.
To meet this goal, you are required to participate in two "research
contacts" during the semester. Each research contact is worth up to 15
points and will require one to two hours of time to complete. Together, the
two research contacts count for up to 30 points (which is the same number of
points as 3 quizzes, or 1.5 homework assignments).

A "research contact" is one of the following:

Participate in an experiment as a subject.

Attend a research presentation and write a one-to-two page report on
the presentation.

Interview a student who is a member of a research group and write a
one-to-two page report of that student's research.

The first research-contact assignments must be completed no later than
Tuesday, February 28, 2006;
the second research-contact assignments must be completed no later than
Tuesday, May 2, 2006.
The procedures and grading criteria for each type of
research contact are explained below.

Experiments

Requirement:
Participate as a subject in an approved experiment. Approved experiments
will be listed on the class web page and announced in lab. There are
currently two experiments approved, and we expect additional studies to be
approved later in the semester.

Note that some experiments will have restrictions on who can participate;
common restrictions include your preferred language (because some
experiments are conducted in Spanish, for example), your gender (because
many experiments require that equal numbers of men and women participate in
the study), or that you must sign up with a friend (because the experiment
requires two people who are comfortable working together). If you do not
qualify for a particular experiment, then you cannot participate in that
study. You likely will qualify for other studies, though.

Procedure:

Contact the student conducting the experiment to find out whether you
qualify for that study and, if you do, make an appointment to do the
experiment. Be sure to get their number to call in case you have to
cancel your appointment for some reason, and find out where the
experiment will be conducted.

Show up at the appointed time and place.

At the conclusion of the experiment, the student conducting the
experiment will have you sign a log to document the fact that you
participated in the study. This log will be given to the CS1401
instructors so that you will get credit for participating.

If for any reason you cannot make an appointment, call in advance and cancel
your appointment. Failure to show up for a scheduled experiment will
increase your research contacts requirement by one.
In other words, if you
no-show for one experiment, your research contact requirement will be
increased to three contacts (10 points each). If you no-show twice, your
requirement will be increased to four. This is because when you fail to show
up for a scheduled appointment, you both waste the time of the student who
is running the experiment and prevent another student from doing the
experiment at that time.

Grading Criteria:
Full credit (15 points per study) for showing up ON TIME and participating
in the experiment.

Research Presentations

Requirement:
Attend a research presentation, either a research talk or a thesis defense,
and write a one-to-two page report on the presentation.

The department has research presentations about twice a month, generally on
alternate Wednesdays at 10:30. Thesis defenses are scheduled as students
complete their research, typically four or five per semester. Announcements
for talks and defenses are posted on the bulletin board to your right as you
enter the Computer Science building. Presentations are about an hour in
length, and most will take place in Room 221 on the main floor of the
Computer Science building. Most talks and defenses are scheduled only five
to seven days in advance, so check frequently.

Procedure:

Attend the talk and take notes. (See note below.)

At the conclusion of the talk, ask one of the faculty to initial your
notes to confirm that you attended.

Write a paper summarizing your understanding of the talk in your own
words. The paper should be not less than one page and not more than two
pages in length using 8.5" x 11" paper with 1.5" margins and
double-spaced 12-point Times Roman (or similar) font. Attach your
original notes as a third page.

NOTE: We do not expect you to understand every detail of these talks; most
of them will be assuming a level of knowledge about Computer Science that
you have not yet attained. We do expect you to do your best, however. For
most talks, you should be able to pick up Why the work is
important
and What
they did to demonstrate that their work is correct, even if you don't
understand some details. For example, it would be okay to report that the
speaker described an experiment in which two versions of a system were
compared to see which was faster but you didn't completely understand how
the systems differed, or that the speaker presented a proof about the
complexity of an algorithm but you didn't understand the proof. Generally
the first few minutes and the last few minutes of a talk are the easiest to
understand, so don't panic (or fall asleep!) if you don't follow some of the
details in the middle.

Grading Criteria:
Each paper will be worth up to 15 points, as follows:

Paper exhibits correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar, and it
follows the formatting and length instructions given above (5 points)

Interviews:

Requirement:
Interview a Computer Science student who is a member of a research group,
and write a one-to-two page report of that student's research.

Procedure:

Locate a Computer Science student doing research. All of the research
groups have lab areas in the basement of the Computer Science building.
Check in rooms 106 (SSEAL: software engineering and parallel
computing), 124
(TRACS: theory, security, cryptography), and others. Knock on a door and ask
politely if you might make an appointment with some student to find out
about the research project they are working on.

Conduct the interview. If several of you want to interview a student
together, that's fine--in fact, it's good. Just make sure that you
write the report by yourself.

Find out who the student is: name, whether they are graduate or
undergraduate, which research group they are in, how long they have
been in the group.

Find out what project the student is working on. Why is this work
interesting and important? What does the student actually do: write
programs, or write proofs, or run experiments, or analyze the
performance of something, for example? If the student has a
publication, ask for a copy of the paper and include a complete,
correct citation in your report. (If you aren't certain how to do this,
ask the student.)

Take notes, and ask the student to sign your notes.

Thank the student profusely for taking the time to talk to you.

Grading Criteria:
Each paper will be worth up to 15 points, as follows:

Your original notes with student signature are attached (5 points)

Paper includes the student's name, whether they are an undergraduate or
graduate student, how long they have been in their research group, and
the date of the interview (2 points)

Paper summarizes what the student is working on and why the project is
important, using your own words (3 points)

Paper exhibits correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar, and it
follows the formatting and length instructions given for the Research
Presentation paper (5 points)